Oxford student too smart for jail faces expulsion
THE Oxford University medical student who stabbed her boyfriend after taking cocaine faces expulsion from her college.
Lavinia Woodward, 24, an aspiring heart surgeon, appeared at Oxford Crown Court last week, where she admitted punching her boyfriend in the face and gashing his leg with a bread knife during a drug-fuelled row.
However, Judge Ian Pringle said her glittering career prospects meant he was minded to take an “exceptional course” when it comes to sentencing, suggesting she might avoid a custodial sentence.
The judge said: “To prevent this extraordinary, able young lady from following her long-held desire to enter the profession she wishes to would be too severe.”
His comments led to speculation that she would be able to continue her studies at Christ Church college, but it has emerged that Woodward had already been warned about drug-taking by the college and had been told she would be expelled if there were any further incidents.
Woodward will be sentenced for the knife attack in September, but could still be expelled from the college once the legal case has concluded. A university spokesman said comments suggesting that Woodward would be permitted to continue her degree “were the judge’s, not the college’s”.
The spokesman added: “The context is obviously extremely serious.”
It has emerged that before the attack, Woodward had been required to submit to regular drug testing by the college and had also been moved on to a research project where she had no contact with patients.
Oxford Crown Court heard how Woodward had met her boyfriend, Thomas Fairclough, a Cambridge PHD student, on the Tinder dating website. During a row in September last year she punched him, slashed him with a knife and hurled a laptop, a glass and a jam jar at him.
It was also revealed that it was not the first such incident and she had attacked him on two previous occasions. She denied the previous charges at an earlier hearing and the court ruled they should lie on file.